Dear Editor:Justin Randolph, Esq. of Chicago, IL once again hoists the canard that no one complains about white illegals (as though Mexicans were not - try telling them that). At least when I read his piece, Mr. Murray's letter did seem to me to be complaining about a white illegal, a British citizen who considered himself an American because he voted regularly and illegally. Mr. Randolph should listen to my legal immigrant wife talk about the kind of Czechs who work in places like Panama City Beach without papers. Their offenses are generally purely administrative, like immigration violations, not paying taxes and driving without licenses, but she thinks they are typical of the cheating scum produced by socialism. I am Czech too, but since I had an easy time naturalizing from Canada, I am a little more forgiving. The reason I am more forgiving is that I am less of an immigrant than she is. I haven't had to deal as much with the frustrations of the INS. I never had to stay awake at night wondering if it were worth it to do the right and legal thing when the illegal one would be so much easier. If Mr. Randolph wants to hear real venom poured on illegals, I suggest he talk to people like my wife or Mr. Murray's clients, who try to obey the law and be good Americans only to see others laugh at their trouble and expense because it is so much easier to be a scofflaw.
I have found that the people who tend to be least upset about immigration in general are upper crust Anglos and those like them. Their jobs are secure and their lives are removed from most of the direct consequences of lawlessness. The people who feel themselves most threatened are those that directly compete with them for jobs and who cannot take protective steps like moving to gated communities. I am convinced that that explains why American blacks are and consistently have been far more anti-immigrant than almost any group of Americans save legal immigrants.
I suspect that most people who object to immigrants refer to Mexicans because Mexicans are easily identifiable as the largest non-assimilated and seemingly (to those whose contact with them tends to be casual) non-assimilating group. Further, their violent crime rates are higher than those of most immigrants in the US. The higher violent crime rates among Mexicans is easy for most people to see onto because they are so easily identifiable as a group. I strongly suspect that would change dramatically if the illegals among them were eliminated from the US population. In the meanwhile, most people in the country are dealing with a highly visible minority, too many of whose members are demanding the privileges of American citizenship, all the while having acted contemptuously towards it. Given the incentives for identity fraud, one can hardly blame many Americans for being suspicious of the claims of good intentions of people who act differently from other Americans, look different and often have serious trouble speaking English. In marked contrast, I have run into very little prejudice against Vietnamese or South Asians down here in Alabama. They are also highly visible but they tend to consciously and conscientiously make vigorous efforts to assimilate since they are almost universally here legally.
What Mr. Murray and my wife have both grasped is that the decision to come or stay illegally is morally corrupting. They may overplay it since they have resisted temptation themselves or at least seen others do the right thing despite grave temptation to the contrary, but they have grasped something basic. Before accusing Mr. Murray of racism, Mr. Randolph could note that the target of Mr. Murray's ire was most likely a white man, perhaps a real Anglosaxon at that. In morally conflating illegals with legal immigrants, he undermines support for legal immigration and makes people like myself jump to the defense of Chucky, Ali Alexander and R.L. Ranger, who may not be too happy I'm even in this country.